Traditional Kyoto Yuzen Kimono dyeing techniques, Father and son team produce colorful and lively patterns

Traditional Kyoto Yuzen Kimono dyeing techniques, Father and son team produce colorful and lively patterns

茶谷 匡晃

21.07.10

Charlie, Tadaaki Chatani

What is your impression when you hear the words "Kyoto and Kimono"? You imagine a Maiko waking the streets of Gion district dressing beautiful Kimono?, or you see a tea ceremony master serving guests wearing Kimono or perhaps you envision a traditional Noh play wear the actors perform wearing fantastic ancient costume . Do you imagine these gorgeous costumes are worn exclusively by people in elite traditional professions. You might be surprised to find out this is not the case.

Kimono made with the dyeing technique called Kyo-Yuzen is colorful and elegant. They have beautifully designed patterns. The Kyo-Yuzen kimono is well-known to overseas not only in Japan.
A hand drawing Kyo-Yuzen artisan, Mr. Nao Aratani (@nao_aratani) introduces his workshop in the Kitayama area and his unique dyeing technique called Hand-drawn Nure-Yuzen style.

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Kyoto hand-drawn Yuzen

Kyoto hand-drawn Yuzen is a Kimono dyeing technique by which artisans color and draw patterns on a cloth fabric by hand not creating the patterns by weaving dyed threads. What makes Kyoto hand-drawn Yuzen special is that the variety of colors used and the patterns on Kimono are colorful. There are about twenty basic colors and artisans mix them to make more than hundreds of different hues. The patterns drawn with these colors are always lively and vibrant. They are unique, each is original and one of a kind.

Also you would be surprised at the beauty of the gradation. It looks like a water-color painting and it will look great on the material. Techniques such as blurring and staining are often used to produce different visual effects, rendering solid colors smoky and diffuse, much like traditional Japanese pen and ink art.

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Putting their hearts into their works, from design to finish

The creation of Kimono made in Kyoto is always a highly segmented process. Each and every step is crucial for the production of a beautiful product. The basic processes of Kyo-Yuzen are as follows;

Step one is Design, next comes drafting then masking (to cover patterns with rice starch to prevent them from discoloration) and coloring / dyeing.

After coloring, steaming (to bond the color to the fabric) - washing and cleansing with water - steaming again (to get rid of wrinkles) - and finishing.

At Mr. Aratani's workshop, they do the all work, from design to finish by themselves apart from a couple of processes which they outsource to other craftsmen.
What makes them unique is Hand-drawn Nure-Yuze. They start by dampening the fabric before they draw their chosen patterns and color the fabric so that the patterns can blur and achieve the effect they desire.

What surprised me was that they often draw patterns directly onto the fabric freehand without any prior drafting and also when they apply the colors. There is no elavorate prepareation. Also they meix the clolors directly on the fabric without any testing. I had imagined that they first mixed colors into the shade they wanted before applying it to that fabric. Instead I discovered that as a result of years of experience they can mix and apply the colors directly on the fly.

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Have you ever heard of "Yuzen Nagashi"?
During dyeing process, starch is used to bond the colors to the fabric and next step to wash off the starch in a river is called "Yuzen Nagashi".
It is believed that this technique started around the year 1900. At that time many Kimono was made and people saw the manufacturers rinsing the starch off the fabric in the Kamo or Horikawa rivers. However since the 1950's, people started to worry about water pollution of the rivers so gradually it was phased out. In 1971, Water Pollution Prevention Act was put into effect and "Yuzen Nagashi" in local rivers was completely banned.

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Two generations of craftsman

Mr. Aratani is the second generation. He works hard to make traditional style Kyo-Yuzen Kimono and also he has been putting a lot of effort to make more casual Kyo-Yuzen items such as shirts or stoles which can be worn every day.
Hand-drawn Yuzen masks have been getting great attentions these days. He started making them since the beginning of the corona outbreak.

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Since Mr. Aratani's father served an apprenticeship at the age of 18 under a master of the textile dyeing art, he has drawn and made thousands of Kyo-Yuzen works over 50 years. Taking advantage of these traditional techniques his father developed, the second generation, Mr. Nao Aratani introduces the best parts of Kyo-Yuzen into our daily lives.

YouTube channel : 碧・手描き友禅チャンネル
Instagram : @ao.gensence4848

AO Hand-drawn Kyoyuzen
5-10 Shimogamo Inokoda-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-0834
Closed every Thursday

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